Doom Dev: "We Want to Be the Best-Looking Game Out There at 60 FPS and 1080p"

For id Software, the developer of Doom, having the game run at 1080p and 60 frames per second is the most necessary graphical goal.

We were able to sit down with Doom’s executive producer, Marty Stratton, at Quakecon, and he talked about the process of deciding whether or not to shoot for high resolution and frame rate. He revealed that id is focused on achieving that goal, and then working on the game’s graphical fidelity after that. “When you’re developing, you make thousands of decisions that have an impact on performance or visual fidelity,” he told us. “We’ve always been at the forefront of saying we want our games to run as fast as possible at the highest resolution possible. So for us, that goal is 1080p and 60 FPS. Along with that goal, the mantra of our technology team is that we want to be the best-looking game out there at 60 FPS and 1080p. So you draw that line in the sand.”

He also said that the determination to reach 1080p and 60 FPS isn’t just for visual reasons. “For us it isn’t just a lofty technical goal,” he explained. “We really do think it’s important to the feel of the game, it’s important to the way our combat feels and our movement feels. It’s got to be fast, it’s got to be fluid, and it’s all based on that. It really is a gameplay goal first and foremost. You do make decisions here or there. Ultimately I don’t think you can ever expect most consumers to really nitpick.”

He continued: “If you do your best to give them a very consistent experience and a very high-quality experience, which for us is a fast, fluid 60 FPS, I think that’s the most important thing. It’s when you cut corners and you end up with a game that doesn’t feel that good, and it’s slow, and it’s just a hodgepodge of a lack of focus throughout, that’s when things start going awry. I think we’ll hit all of our goals.”